Since January of 2010 I have owned a DiNovo Logitech Wireless Keyboard. If you’re wondering how it’s any different than the K800, the difference is huge, but I will get to that in a moment. My DiNovo is what I have been using in my home office for just about a year and a half now. There are hundreds of keyboards on the market; the reasons I picked the DiNovo are: 1. its wireless, 2. Logitech makes the best keyboards, 3. it has a calculator pad on the right, and 4. the calculator pad has a calculator button that automatically commands my PC to bring up the calculator application. These things make my life easier. That makes me happy.

Here is what I hadn’t considered and what I had to learn the hard way: anything that is wireless should not be battery operated. Why? Because batteries are archaic and technology should not be.

From quite early on, my Logitech DiNovo would lose juice amid sentence. I’d be typing and then all of the sudden the DiNovo would simply crap out. I’d either have to do a battery pull on my Duracell’s (not kidding) or an AAA battery replacement before the thing would start typing again. When you’re in the middle of an email, proposal, a blog post or anything relatively important, the visceral reaction to an interruption of this sort is to take the keyboard and throw it across the room. Truthfully, I am not sure if I was angrier at the keyboard for crapping out or at myself for having let it happen again, and again, and again… I digress.

The Review

When my business recently relocated to a new office in Midtown, I decided I wouldn’t be making the same mistake twice: I purchased a Logitech K800 for my new office PC. Much like the DiNovo, its also Logitech, its wireless, it has the calculator pad and calculator function I love, but better yet it’s rechargeable! Plug it into the micro USB charging cable and you’re good to go for about 2 weeks –sometimes more! The K800 is also illuminated, which makes typing in the dark really easy (yea, yea, I know it’s bad for your eyes – guilty as charged).

A few days ago, when I had the sixth sense that my DiNovo was approaching the end of its useful life, I preemptively placed an order for a second K800; this one for my home. As luck would have it, my DiNovo was entirely out of commission as of Thursday night (battery pulls and all). Luckily for me, my K800 arrived yesterday!

My Friday Night

I had a dinner to attend after work last night but I wanted to make sure I’d have the keyboard at home for the weekend, so I put the unopened box into my oversized purse and carried it through the events of the evening. It seemed like an obvious thing for me to do, but I didn’t consider how I would occur to other people. I must admit I laughed when my friend Mary said “well Renee, if it wasn’t already clear that you’re and IT nerd, then surely carrying a keyboard around is solid proof.” She’s probably right

Lessons from all of this:

1. if you want to be efficient, don’t buy a battery powered keyboard (or mouse!); and

2. if you don’t want people to know you’re an IT nerd, don’t excitedly carry a keyboard in your purse.